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St Lawrence, Priddy, Somerset

Location
(51°15′35″N, 2°40′40″W)
Priddy
ST 528 514
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Somerset
now Somerset
medieval Wells
now Bath & Wells
  • Robin Downes
  • Robin Downes

24 July 2007

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Feature Sets
Description

Priddy is a scattered village high up on Mendip at over 200m, 4 mi W of Wells, Somerset. The settlement is focused on the large central green still used for sheep fairs in an upland limestone landscape quite bleak in winter and replete with prehistoric monuments. The church occupies an eminence N of the green. There is good space all around except to the N, so that the building may be fully appreciated from most angles. The present building has fabric of 13thc, 14thc and 15thc date, and was restored 1881-8. It is made of coursed and squared rubble with freestone dressings. It has nave, chancel, N aisle, N and S transepts, S porch, N and S chancel chapels and a W tower. There is a Romanesque tub font.

History

Priddy is not specifically mentioned in Domesday book, but was presumably part of Wells Forum.

Features

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

The rough surface on the NW side of the font is possibly evidence for it having been previously placed hard against a wall.

A pillar piscina in Compton Martin church, about 4 mi away, is said to have been brought from Priddy church.

Bibliography
  1. F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications (London, 1899), III, 230.

Historic England listing 1177825 (included in Somerset County Council, Historic Environment Records).

  1. N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol (Harmondsworth, 1958), 246.

Somerset County Council, Historic Environment Record 21929. Online at http://webapp1.somerset.gov.uk/her/text.asp